Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Piney Creeks District: Ozark National Forest

We strayed away from our home turf and explored West. Memorial Day weekend at Richland Creek we decided; somewhere new. It is ClOSED for an undetermined amount of time due to the severe Spring Floods. The roads are washed out and trees are washed down. Luckily the parade road guard alerted us to this fact while we were waiting for the Whitt Springs Parade to pass.
hillbilly daze memorial day parade
Whitt guide
another hound at the memorial day parade at whitt springs, ar

He advised us to trek further West and into the Piney Creeks valley for fishing and dirt biking. We drove down a long FS road and pulled into the last remote campsite available. A couple was there for an afternoon of fishing. They let us pull in and pitch tent.



This was the snakiest place I have ever seen aside from the Temple of Doom.

piney creek snake hole


We got to know and like these folks. The lady is from just down the road on Moccasin Creek and she was up for the afternoon . The more we heard about her home, the more we wanted to go see it. She owns 40 acres of a hollow that are grandfathered into the National Forest. It is a apart of the old Paige Homestead. The Paiges were from Mississippi and resettled into Moccasin Creek in the mid 1800s. Supposedly a couple of hundred people lived down in the hollow - and this is just hard for me to imagine.

Moccasin Creek Cabin
creek that goes into moccasin creek

moccasin gap, ar

moccasin gap, ar

This valley is so remote. The homestead has a home built in the 50's and numerous outbuildings on it from the mid 1800s and pastures and more swimming holes than one could ever hit in a weekend. They fed us and toured us around and there was no place else I'd rather be!




homestead cabin at moccasin creek
homestead cabin moccasin creek

Unlike the Sylamore District of the Ozark National Forest, there were biting flying insects here and I'm not accustomed to that!

2 comments:

Al-Ozarka said...

Piney? Moccasin?

You sure y'all weren't in Izard Co.?

It looks like you had a great time.

Personally, I took a weekend off from "exploring" and took my two eldest to LR so's they could see that li'l ol' band from Texas!

Ain't nothin like being crowded and overheated on slimy turf watching rock-n-roll to make one not want to attend another outdoor rock concert for a few years!

Kinda like those hangovers we all used to have...you know...the ones when we said "never again"?

ZZ-Top made it worth the misery, though!

the sparkler said...

LOVE the swimmin' holes!!! That's awesome--Joy to you.